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Prerequisites

This tutorial will take you through each step, from setting up your development environment to understanding the code.

Before we dive into coding, let's ensure your development environment is ready.

Step 1: Install Node.js and setup the project​

  1. Node.js Installation: If you don't have Node.js installed, you can download and install it from the official website. Node.js allows us to run JavaScript on the server side.

  2. Create a Project Directory: In your terminal, navigate to the directory where you want to create your project and run:

    mkdir chromia-book-review-demo
    cd chromia-book-review-demo

  3. Initialize a Node.js Project: Run the following command to create a package.json file:

    npm init -y

Step 2: Install packages​

Now that your project is set up, you'll need to install some essential packages:

npm install typescript postchain-client readline @types/node
  • typescript: This package provides typescript support.
  • postchain-client: This package provides tools for interacting with the Chromia blockchain.
  • readline: This is a core Node.js module that helps us read user input from the command line.

Step 4: Configure TypeScript​

To use TypeScript in your project, you need a configuration file named tsconfig.json. You can create one with the following command:

npx tsc --init

This command generates a default tsconfig.json file that you can customize based on your project's needs.

Step 5: Integrate the code​

With all the necessary packages installed, it's time to integrate the code into your project. You can do this by following these steps:

  1. Create a TypeScript file in your project directory for our client, book_review.ts. In the upcoming sections, we will add code for our client to this file, but for now, it will be empty.

  2. When you want to run your Typescript code, it needs to be transpiled to JavaScript by running the following command:

    npx tsc book_review.ts

This command generates a book_review.js file containing the compiled JavaScript code.

  1. Finally, run your code with Node.js:

    node book_review.js

This will execute your TypeScript code and interact with the Chromia blockchain as specified.

That's it! You've successfully set up your development environment, installed the necessary packages, and integrated TypeScript into your project. Next, we will explore our client example.